iss Pucker in her oldest merino dress, Rachel was to be decked in
muslin and finery, and sent out to a dancing party at which this
young man was to be the hero! It was altogether too much for Dorothea
Prime. She slowly wiped the crumbs from off her dingy crape, and with
creaking noise pushed back her chair. "Mother," she said, "I couldn't
have believed it! I could not have believed it!" Then she withdrew to
her own chamber.

Mrs. Ray was much afflicted; but not the less did Rachel look out for
the returning postman, on his road into Baslehurst, that she might
send her little note to Mrs. Tappitt, signifying her acceptance of
that lady's kind invitation.

CHAPTER VI.

PREPARATIONS FOR MRS. TAPPITT'S PARTY.

I am disposed to think that Mrs. Butler Cornbury did Mrs. Tappitt an
injury when she with so much ready goodnature accepted the invitation
for the party, and that Mrs. Tappitt was aware of this before the
night of the party arrived. She was put on her mettle in a way that
was disagreeable to her, and forced into an amount of submissive
supplication to Mr. Tappitt for funds, which was vexatious to her
spirit. Mrs. Tappitt was a good wife, who never ran her husband into
debt, and kept nothing secret from him in the management of her
household,--nothing at least which it behoved him to know. But she
understood the privileges of her position, and could it have been
possible for her to have carried through this party without extra
household moneys, or without any violent departure from her usual
customs of life, she could have snubbed her husband's objections
comfortably, and have put him into the background for the occasion
without any inconvenience to herself or power of remonstrance from
him. But when Mrs. Butler Cornbury had been gracious, and when the
fiddles and horn had become a fact to be accomplished, when Mrs.
Rowan and Mary began to loom large on her imagination and a regular
supper was projected, then Mrs. Tappitt felt the necessity of
superior aid, and found herself called upon to reconcile her lord.

And this work was the more difficult and the more disagreeable to
her feelings because she had already pooh-poohed her husband when he
asked a question about the party. "Just a few friends got together by
the girls," she had said. "Leave it all to them, my dear. It's not
very often they see anybody at home."

"I believe I see my friends as often as most people in Baslehurst,"
Mr. Tappitt had repli